New Spirits Spice Up Noe’s Nightlife

Cocktails, Anyone?

New
owners have spiffed up O’Greenberg’s at Dolores and
29th, and added more beer and wine choices. They’ve also
renamed the bar Dolores Corner. Photo
by Corrie M. Anders

Noe Valley has long had its friendly dives and
mom-and-pop liquor
stores. But there is a bit more flair and sophistication these
days for those
looking for a taste of the good life.

This month alone, you can spot two new trends in
the bar scene.
One is the arrival of a “gastropub,” a drinking establishment
where patrons can
dine on artisanal foods designed to complement their beer or
wine. Then there
is Noe Valley’s first cocktail-tasting party, the joint
production of an
already popular bar and a wine shop.

Livening the mix is a second (or maybe third)
wave of young
professionals settling in the neighborhood, and a changing of
the guard among
longtime bar and cafe owners.

In the past year, the alcohol licenses of at
least four businesses
have changed hands. The new owners are adding fresh
personality to a landscape
that already embraces live music, WiFi happy hours, digital
jukeboxes playing
hundreds of thousands of songs, and walls of wide-screen TVs
catering to sports
fans.

“It’s gotten a bit more lively than before,” says
Leslie Kim, 32,
who enjoys a closeup view of Noe Valley’s nightlife. There are
five bars—each
with its own distinct vibe—within walking distance of her loft
apartment on
24th Street.

The crowds are younger too, unlike nine years ago
when she moved
to Noe Valley and felt like she was outside her demographic.
“Now there are
more young people in my age bracket,” says Kim, a fitness and
wellness coach.

John Dampeer and Adnan Daken started the latest
buzz in October
when they purchased Joe’s 24th Street Café at 3853 24th St.
near Vicksburg. The
partners are busy converting the cafe into a bar and bistro
named Crafthouse,*
which they expect to open in December.

The Crafthouse specialty will be gourmet beers on
tap, many from
small craft breweries on the West Coast. The bar’s menu will
feature foods that
pair well with the beers, such as pork loin sandwiches,
burgers, and fig and
goat cheese paninis. Patrons can also choose from a half dozen
bottled beers.

Dampeer is new to the business. But the
Crafthouse concept is
similar to that of Internos, a wine bar and café in the
Richmond District that
Daken co-owns.

Crafthouse also plans to serve wine. The
competition doesn’t
perturb James Mead, who owns Noe Valley Wine Merchants a few
steps away at 3821
24th St. near Church Street.

“I’m happy as hell,” Mead says about the advent
of Crafthouse.
“More traffic on the street helps everyone.”

Mead opened his shop (in the former Urban
Cellars) in March. Wine
lovers, he says, began showing up soon after the store began
holding tastings
of vintages from “every major wine-growing area in the
world”—Italy, Greece,
and France, of course, and a few not so famous regions in
Slovenia and Croatia.

The $10 wine tastings occur two to three times a
month, generally
in the evenings. (Last month, Mead uncorked a 1999 C.H. Berres
†rziger
Wźrzgarten SpŠtlese Riesling, which costs $17.98 a bottle, and
a 2011 Santa
Lucia Highlands Luli Pinot Noir at $18.99.

Mead says he expected from the outset that
wine-tasting would be a
hit in Noe Valley, as it is elsewhere. His “biggest surprise”
has been the
popularity of artisan spirits like single-barrel bourbons and
fine-quality ryes
and gins used to create exotic cocktails. “It’s really been a
bigger part of
the business than I anticipated.”

With or Without Olives?

It’s a trend that PlumpJack Wine & Spirits at
4011 24th St.
also has noticed. The wine retailer has teamed up with Bliss
Bar to launch a
series of cocktail-tasting parties. The first one is set for
Dec. 5 at the
nightclub, located across the street at 4026 24th.

“It just seems like the right idea and the right
fit,” says
PlumpJack manager Joshua Thinnes, 26. “The younger crowd in my
generation that
is flocking to Noe Valley…has certainly helped increase the
demand for
spirits.”

PlumpJack, which already hosts both a champagne
and a wine
membership club, claims its new cocktail club is a first for
San Francisco. The
inaugural tasting will include two offerings: a St. Germain
liqueur crafted
from elderberry flowers and a spicy gin made from a mix of
juniper berries and
other plants.

In the future, “we’ll do tastings every other
month,” says
Thinnes. The events are free to cocktail club members and $10
for guests.

Bliss, which has presented jazz groups on Sunday
afternoons for
several years, last September started offering soul, pop,
blues, and other live
music on select days during the week.

With deejays also spinning dance music and a
monthly live comedy
act, the lounge draws a mixed crowd of Asians, Latinos, and
whites, says Bliss
owner Pierre Letheule.

There’s a Draft in Here

The Valley Tavern, a classic sports bar at 4054
24th St., has one
of the largest beer inventories in the neighborhood.

“We show every game in the country on Sundays,”
says Hogan. “We
have people from all over the country who come here to watch
their individuals
games” and snack on free barbecue.

Trivia Night on Tuesdays, a chance for folks to
show off their
intelligence, also plays to a packed house. And the free WiFi
draws an
afternoon crowd of those who are married to their laptops.Hogan operated a second
bar, the Dubliner, for two decades until he sold it last fall.
Like the Valley
Tavern, the bar has a sports vibe and is a great hook-up venue
for 20- and
30-something men and women.

Dubliner manager Ken Yeung, 32, says he didn’t
want to make any
major changes after his family took over the saloon at 3838
24th St.

“I’ve always thought it was a great local bar and
I didn’t want to
change the dynamics,” says Yeung, adding that the bar has a
“friendly
atmosphere like a Cheers bar.”

Instead, he replaced a number of smaller, older
TVs with flat
screens, boosted the number of top-shelf liquors to go along
with the 25 beers
on tap, and introduced a daily midnight-to-closing happy hour
to complement the
regular 4 to 7 p.m. weekday slot for discounted drinks.

Ironically, Yeung says he knew very little about
Noe Valley until
he started his pre-purchase research. The Sunset District
resident says he
walked up and down 24th Street and talked to merchants,
passersby, and patrons
in bars.

“Tell you what, it’s a great neighborhood. All
the feedback I got
was that this is the nicest, cleanest, most trouble-free
neighborhood in the
whole city.”

The Bar on the Corner

It was a given that partners Ray Siri, Joe
Ascara, and Belinda
Kerr needed to spruce up the low-key bar they purchased in
October.
O’Greenberg’s, an old-school neighborhood pub located on the
southern outskirts
of Noe Valley at Dolores and 29th streets, had seen better
days.

“When we walked in here, the only two beers were
Corona and Corona
Light,” Siri says about the bar, which the partners have
renamed Dolores
Corner. “You couldn’t even get a Bud Light in this place.”

Today, there are eight bottled beers, 15 brews on
tap, and a wine
selection that has expanded from six to eight. The partners
also modernized the
bathroom, put in a new digital jukebox, and installed a more
efficient sound
system. Their work-in-progress includes replacing tired bar
stools and the
indoor-outdoor carpet in the pool table and dartboard areas
and lightening up
the dark setting with newly painted white ceilings. They also
are offering WiFi
and free cold cuts during sports events.

“It’s not that we’re going upscale or
dramatically changing
anything,” says Siri. “What we’re looking to do is become a
neighborhood
meeting spot” that will continue to attract a 30-ish to
middle-aged crowd of
locals.

The bar’s new moniker may seem somewhat tame
after
“O’Greenberg’s,” a conjunction that acknowledged the previous
owner’s Jewish
heritage and the Irish makeup of the neighborhood when the bar
opened in 1976.

Siri says the new owners kicked around a variety
of names,
including Paladin, defined as a protector or champion of good
causes not unlike
Kerr’s former role as a San Francisco police officer.

In the end, though, Siri says the group decided
on practicality.
The bar is located on Dolores—the only tavern along the entire
two-mile stretch
of the historic street—and it’s on a corner.

The bar’s logo—coming any day now—will reside at
the entrance just
under the American, Italian, and Scottish national flags.

*Owner John Dampeer informed us after press
time that the name has
been changed to Caskhouse.